


Gala

by keylimepidge



Series: Voltron Lover's Dictionary: Shiro x Pidge [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, First Meeting, I know nothing about the military so, Minor Swearing, Mostly Platonic, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keylimepidge/pseuds/keylimepidge
Summary: Fancy dress, formality, and fanfare weren't the reasons Shiro had joined the Galaxy Garrison: he wanted to fly. But after a full semester of successes, Shiro feels like he's moments away from his first crash landing. Death, or worse, expulsion, looks like an endless receiving line at the Garrison’s annual military gala.





	Gala

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AquaBurst07](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaBurst07/gifts).



> Part 2 of a collection of Shidge Fics written for my Lover's Dictionary follower celebration on Tumblr!
> 
> Unless otherwise noted, individual entries are not connected to one another.
> 
> In this case, however, 'Gala' and 'Wanderlust' can be understood to exist in the same timeline, separated by about 5 years of time.  
> ...  
> "Gala" requested by the Aquaburst07 
> 
> Pidge is 14, Shiro is 16.

**Gala, _noun  
1\. a social occasion with special entertainments or performances._**

“Cut it out, you’re fine.”

The pressure of Matt’s hand follows a moment later, stopping his incessant fidgeting with the green aiguillette looped around his left shoulder. Shiro looks at Matt. His muscles pull too taut when he smiles at his roommate, and he knows Matt sees straight through it.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Matt continues. “I’ve been to a thousand of these things because of my dad, and I know for a fact that no one is watching us cadets - not even Iverson.”

He laughs at Shiro’s dubious expression. “Okay, well _maybe_ Iverson might be watching from time to time.”

Shiro’s pretty sure the grimace on his lips isn't regulation, but he can't help it. Nothing about Matt’s words were even vaguely in the realm of comforting, and he'd already been plenty on edge before them. 

Fancy dress, formality, and fanfare weren't the reasons Shiro had joined the Galaxy Garrison: he wanted to fly. But after a full semester of successes, Shiro feels like he's moments away from his first crash landing. Death, or worse, expulsion, looks like an endless receiving line at the Garrison’s annual military gala. 

Matt sighs and nudges him forward. Shiro takes a few steps, clasps his hands behind his back, and tries to exude an air of diligent neutrality as he watches the other cadets in front of him. Logically, the sight of Commander Holt a few people down the line should be a reassurance. The Commander had hand-picked Shiro for the Garrison, sat on the interviewing panel for his scholarship application, and then helped him move his few boxes into the small dorm room he and Matt shared. They’d met plenty of times, and each time Commander Holt greeted him with the same crooked, friendly smile he shoots Shiro now.

“Shiro, my boy-” Commander Holt starts, reaching out for Shiro’s hand.

Matt cuts in. “Come on, Dad, this is Shiro’s first receiving line. We gotta do it right or his head might explode.”

Commander Holt shakes his head at Matt and chuckles. “Fine, _Cadet_. We certainly wouldn’t want to lose our star pilot before he makes it to the Space Exploration program.”

“Sometimes I swear he likes you better than me,” Matt murmurs before straightening and extending his hand to his father.

“Commander Holt, it’s a pleasure to see you and your family this evening,” he continues, affecting a stuffy and noticeably more nasal tone. “Allow me to introduce Cadet Shirogane, one of our class leaders and my roommate.”

Shiro returns Commander Holt’s handshake. “It’s a pleasure to see you, Sir.”

Commander Holt keeps firm hold of Shiro’s hand and breaks protocol even faster than Matt, pulling Shiro into a one-armed embrace a moment later. “Please, Shiro, none of this ‘Sir’ business. You know you can call me Sam.”

He should have expected one, or both, of the Holts to throw him off-guard, but it doesn’t make his fumbled, “Yes Sir, Sir- I mean, Sam- Sir-” as he steps from Sam’s hug any more dignified. Still, Matt does at least attempt to come to his defense with a hissed, “Dad, come on!” through his barely-stifled snickers. 

Under any other circumstances, Shiro thinks, Matt would be dead right now, buried under a year’s worth of bathroom cleaning for all of the mischief he’s racked up that Shiro, model student, has found a way to cover for. There’s no subtle way to turn and glare at Matt, so Shiro decides he’ll let his roommate know _exactly_ how pissed he is once their back on base. Possibly with a request to Iverson for a 3 am ‘random’ room inspection.

But for now, he carries on with Matt’s receiving line introductions. Matt steers him a few steps further, to a woman with Matt’s brown hair and same sharp eyes. “Cadet Shirogane,” Matt says, “Mrs. Colleen Holt. Mom, Shiro.”

They shake hands. Her eyes crinkle up at the corners as she smiles and goes, “I tried my best with them, I truly did.” She nods to Matt. “I lived with this one for sixteen years; I give you credit for making it a semester.”

At this Matt scowls, and before he can check himself, Shiro laughs. He cuts off and glances around, but Iverson is nowhere around to catch his indiscretion. Colleen leans in and pats the top his his hand. “Don’t worry, we won’t tell any Garrison folk that you’re a regular human, Cadet.”

He’s too anxious for her joke to fully unwind the pit of nerves in his gut, but under other circumstances he thinks her warm expression might be an instant ‘at ease.’ 

“Okay, okay, this formality is starting to get to me, let’s keep in going,” Matt says, shuffling Shiro along. “Last and least… This is my obnoxiously brilliant little sister, Pidge.”

He and Matt have talked often about their families, including Matt’s sister. Shiro has seen flashes of Katie Holt among the substantial array of personal photos Matt keeps lined up on the top shelf of his desk or taped to his wall. In the pictures he remembers, she and Matt are always children, with bright smiles and baby-soft faces. For whatever reason, Shiro had thought Matt and his sister were separated by a wide age gap, but the young woman standing at Colleen’s shoulder looks like she couldn't be more than two or three years his junior. She also looks incredibly, painfully bored - an expression disturbed only by a flicker of annoyance. 

“Don’t call me that,” Katie says, voice flat. Matt smirks.

“Pardon me,” he drawls. “Cadet Shirogane, this is my younger sibling, Katherine Holt.”

Her brown eyes narrow into a piercing stare; even though he's not the intended target, Shiro still feels run through by it. Funny, of all the ways he anticipated tonight going sideways, being murdered by a teenager in an gold-and-black dress and curly updo wasn’t one of them.

“Don't call me that either, _Cadet Holt_ ,” Katie bites out.

Shiro glances to Matt and the line of cadets and other guests backing up behind them. From the smirk on Matt’s face he gets the sense that his friend is perfectly willing to hold up the line to keep needling his sister. For not the first time, Shiro squares up and resolves to be the adult of the pair. He nods and salutes. Katie returns the gesture with her own lazy, two-finger wave. It buys him an extra moment to scan his memory for something useful from Matt's countless stories.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Katie. Matt’s mentioned that you're working in your spare time on developing some sort of piloting program?”

Her eyes take in his face, then widen in delight. He recognizes her grin as giddy, if only from having seen the same one on Matt right before he proposed they do something reckless.

“You're the pilot!”

She steps abruptly out of line and places a hand on his arm. His first two instincts - to step away in surprise and to politely stay put - crash up against one another and cancel out in a spectacularly awkward fashion; he shuffles back and forth for a moment before stammering out, “Yes, I mean, well, I’m _a_ pilot, or, am going to be but-”

Katie hardly seems to hear him. She adjusts to wrap both hands around his elbow and begins steering Shiro straight out of the receiving line. 

“Please, Matt’s told me plenty, you're exactly what I'm looking for. Let’s go sit down,” she says, as if she weren't already guiding him towards the tables on the other end of the banquet hall. “These lines are sooo boooooring.”

Shiro throws a panicked look over his shoulder to Matt. Ever helpful, Matt looks like he's about to burst out laughing. He gives a thumbs up and mouths _Just go with it._ Totally unconvinced, he turns his gaze to Samuel, who smiles and sends him off with a nod. 

“No one cares that much about cadets in the receiving line,” Katie says, drawing his attention back. “Only that baboon Iverson, but since you’re technically escorting a guest of honor, he probably won't bitch too much about it.”

The 'Guest of Honor’ bit makes his stomach drop faster than a plane in nose-dive. As they weave around the tables, they get nearer to the front of the room and closer to the long table reserved for Garrison command. As if he hadn't already felt out of place: all he needed was to be led around the room by another teenager until he was spitting distance from the men and women who determined his fate on a daily basis.

Shiro swallows. “I think you're the one escorting me, technically,” he says. Katie laughs, rich and loud, and it does nothing to temper the dizzying whiplash Shiro feels. 

“Maybe,” she says. “But Iverson’s a misogynistic boar and I've been told before that I'm supposed to 'uphold appearances’ at these things.”

They approach a table with a stand bearing a card that reads “Holt - Ruiz”. Shiro dips his head and leans in so that only she can hear him. 

“I think if you were all that worried about appearances you wouldn't have yanked me out of the receiving line,” he mutters.

Her faces goes a little red. “You can thank me for it later.” She lets go of his arm and wipes her palms on her dress.

Mystified at her reaction, Shiro defaults to politeness, straightening and sliding out a chair for her to sit.

Two of the eight seats are already occupied, one by a woman whose bars ranks her as a captain, the other by a well-dressed man Shiro can only speculate is her husband. The man smiles warmly up at the two of them as Katie slips into her seat. Shiro hesitates, unsure of where to sit and unsure of any sort of protocol for table introductions. Katie herself is no help - she chirps a quick “Hi,” before pulling her phone out of the pocket of her dress. He looks from her, to the Captain, to the man, back to her. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears. The man’s grin widens and he glances to the Captain.

“Cadet,” the Captain starts. There’s a slight purse to her lips, and it’s impossible for Shiro to tell if she’s amused or offended. Shiro springs into a salute, holding it until a heartbeat later when he’s released with a chuckled, “At ease.”

"Since Ms. Holt didn’t feel the need to do the honors, I’m Captain Ruiz, and this is my husband, Leo.” Her husband nods and reaches out to shake Shiro’s hand. 

“Takashi, right?” Mr. Ruiz says. He must notice Shiro’s sudden tensing, and laughs. “Relax, Cadet, no terrible rumors circulating about you this evening. You have a place card between Matt and Katie.”

“I’ve heard your name around base a few times, Cadet Shirogane,” Captain Ruiz says. Shiro is struck with a sudden lack of ability to feel his heartbeat. Was this how it ended? “They say your adherence to Garrison rules and expectations is impressive. Must have been why they roomed you with Cadet Holt.”

Shiro blinks. Captain Ruiz’s tone had remained perfectly even the entire time she was speaking, but yet he suspects she’s teasing Matt and him. From his side, Katie snorts. 

“Cadet Holt has a familiarity with the military way of life that I previously didn’t have,” Shiro starts, choosing his words carefully. He’s not doing a good job, given how Katie snorts even harder. “His experience has been… invaluable.”

Captain Ruiz exchanges a look with her husband. “I’m sure some would say so,” she replies. She starts to say something else, but is cut off when Katie interjects with a sharp, “Shiro, sit down already, I need you to look at something.” 

She tugs on his sleeve and then gestures to the seat to her left. He sees a little folded tent of thick paper bearing his name underneath the Garrison insignia. Stiffly, Shiro pulls out his own chair and sits.

In an instant Katie is shoving her phone in front of his face to show him something. He thinks he recognizes the configuration of one of the aircraft the cadets are being trained on, but she scrolls to something else far too fast for him to be sure. Page after page of tiny diagrams and winding text fly by as she scrolls.

“So I’ve been looking through the last version of the flight manual they train all Garrison pilots on,” Katie starts, still scrolling,” but it’s at least two years outdated. Garrison typically updates the software on its navigation and tracking systems every three years - not nearly enough, if you ask me, but no one does - meaning that this version of the manual isn’t current with what they’re running on the planes right now. I guess I have to say for once I’m impressed with the Garrison’s cyber security measures, not to have a digital version hosted on the main network somewhere, but not having it is really getting in the way of my work.”

His eyebrows crease as he tries to focus on what’s going by on the screen, but he has no clue what she wants him to look for, so he nods along and waits for her to finish. She stops a few times, tapping on a picture or a diagram to enlarge it, and looks at him expectantly. Each time as he’s about to ask her what the question was - he’s pretty sure she never actually asked one - she clicks out of the image and starts scrolling again, talking all the while. Half of her words sound familiar, related to the navigation and steering systems he’s been learning much of this year, but the other half fly over his head like a jet skimming the upper atmosphere. When Matt had referred to Katie as ‘brilliant’, he’d really been underselling her ability. 

“So you can see my dilemma,” Katie finishes. “What do you think?”

Taken by surprise at her sudden end, Shiro blurts out the first thing that enters his brain. “I think you should probably be teaching the Charting and Navigation course instead of Lieutenant Kobe.”

Katie flushes pink, parts her lips to say something and then closes them abruptly. 

“Don’t let the Lieutenant hear you saying that, Shiro.”

Matt plops down in the chair to his left, grin from the receiving line as bright as ever. Shiro tenses and looks around for the Lieutenant, which sets Matt off into an ear-splitting cackle. Samuel, pulling out the chair next to Matt for Colleen, shoots Matt the sternest look Shiro’s ever seen him muster. Matt seems unfazed. 

The other Holts greet Captain and Mr. Ruiz and conversation starts up across the table. Shiro follows along diligently, paying careful attention to what Samuel and the Captain say about the upcoming mission for those in the Space Exploration Program. In another year, Shiro would be applying to the S.E.P., the most competitive and rigorous of the three specialized programs offered for Garrison enlisted students after their two years of all-field basic training. Some might go straight into active military service, some might track for Command or do R&D in the Engineering program, but Shiro would be going to space.

Conversation carries them through the first courses of dinner, pausing only for a brief speech from one of the Admirals from the S.E.P. Shiro is so intent on following along with everything the Ruizes and older Holts discuss that it’s not until an hour into dinner that he notices Katie hasn’t said a word since Matt sat down. He looks over. Katie’s salad plate is half-picked over with Katie herself discreetly tapping at her phone under the table. Immediately, Shiro feels bad. He had, somehow, become her unofficial escort, he supposes. He leans in and lightly places a hand on her arm, just enough to get her attention.

“You probably get pretty bored sitting through these things,” he says.

Katie looks up from her phone. “How could you tell?” she asks, voice flat. Her eyes crease a little at the corners, though, a tell-tale sign of amusement he’s already seen on Samuel and Matt.

“Why not just stay home? I know Matt - your parents don’t seem like the forcing type.”

She sighs, shoulders hunching. “They’re not forcing me to come to these mediocre excuses for a military circle-jerk, but every year around this time, Mom and Dad start dropping those reminders of just _how helpful_ it’ll be to my Garrison career to be seen at these things, and just _how much_ I can learn from seeing other cadets and the officers interact.” 

Rolling her eyes, Katie turns to look at him and props her chin in her hand. “It’s obvious that you’ll walk away from this with one-thousand little formalities and social protocols stored away for next time, but I’ve been going to these since I was old enough to walk and I still don’t care which fork is the salad fork and which one is for dessert or whatever. That’s not going to get me into the Garrison: my last name is.”

Shiro frowns. Despite her disaffected words, there’s a hint of pride there - that she’s a Holt, that no matter what she does, she’ll always be welcome at the Galaxy Garrison. He’d heard the same tone in Matt’s voice from time to time, typically right after Shiro scolded him for doing something that was absolutely in violation of the rules for cadet. Even with all his best manners Shiro, who’d made it in on a scholarship after working his ass off and leaving his mother an ocean away, can’t help but bristle.

Katie must catch his reaction. “Sorry, that was…” she trails off and looks away. 

“Kind of rude?” Shiro suggests. For once, he doesn’t glance around to see if anyone is listening in.

Katie’s cheeks go pink for the third time that night, but she sits up and tips her chin forward, defiant. “Yeah, I guess, and I didn’t mean it. But I’m not going to slack off or anything. I have another year before I can apply, which is why I’m trying to get my project done in time. That’s why I was hoping you might… help me out…?”

He raises an eyebrow. Was she serious? Katie winces.

“Please…?” she follows up. “You’re the only person I’ve met who is on track to be a pilot, and Matt says that you’re the best of all of the cadets in your year and the year ahead.” Katie fishes her phone from her dress pocket and shows him the diagrams on the screen again. “He mentioned once that you probably have the flight manual memorized cover to cover, and since the text isn’t digitized I was hoping you would be able to point out some places where they made changes between the newest version and this one.”

Shiro can’t believe her. And he’d thought Matt was bad. “The manual is over 230 pages,” he says, “and whatever Matt said about me, I don’t have a photographic memory.”

Apparently his words aren’t clear enough of a ‘no’ for Katie. In fact, she smiles a little, looking excited. “We could work around that,” she says, dismissing his concerns with a wave of her hand. “Using the Garrison scanning system would be too obvious, but you could take pictures of the pages and send them to me.”

“Why don’t you just have Matt do it?”

Katie makes a face. “And be beholden to him for the rest of my life? No thank you. Besides, he probably figures he’d get in huge trouble if Dad found out, but Dad seems to love you, so you’d be fine. He wouldn’t tell the Garrison or anything.”

A red flag goes up in Shiro’s head. In fact, he seems to recall some very specific instructions about keeping the flight manual - and all of its contents - on base at all times. Not top secret, necessarily, but close enough for a cadet. 

“I want a pilot’s input, too, for the system I’m designing,” she continues. “Matt doesn’t care about flying beyond passing the basics tests. He’s not going to be able to give me the kind of detailed feedback I need.”

“So you want me to send you pictures on my phone of classified military documents?” Shiro asks, not hiding his incredulity. “And then help you design a program using information you’re not supposed to have?”

Katie shrugs. Her lips pull into a little grin on one side. “Please?”

Best friend’s little sister or no, Shiro’s not risking his position or his scholarship, even if he is intrigued with what she’s come up with. He takes a deep breath and gives a soft but firm, “No.”

Katie deflates. “But it’ll help in the long run! From what I know of the current systems, they’re next to garbage. You’ll have a huge edge on whatever they roll out next if you’re giving input and practicing on a different system - especially if they decide to go with mine.”

Shiro shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Katie. I know you’re bright and all, and I have no doubts you’ll be able to put together a great program, but you’re what - thirteen?-”

“Fourteen,” she cuts in, tilting her nose in the air. 

“Sorry, fourteen. Even if your program is better, brass will never go with a program that isn’t run through their labs and vetted over and over again. And I can’t risk my position at the Garrison for something like this.”

This time when Katie goes flush, it’s not with embarrassment. She clutches her phone tightly in her hand and looks for a moment as if she might throw it. “Your position in the Garrison? You’re a cadet. The higher-ups aren’t going to be scrutinizing either of us.”

“It’s a risk I can’t take,” he says. “I don’t have the name, and I doubt yours would be enough to cover you if we did get caught. I’m sorry. If there’s something else I can help you with, I’ll be happy to try.”

“I’ll just do it on my own,” she spits.

Instead of throwing her phone at him, she jams it back under the table, turns from him, and starts typing furiously on it. Shiro gapes at her, somewhere between conflicted and affronted. On one hand, what he could understand from the things she’d been showing him earlier made the chance she was suggesting worthwhile. On the other hand, the fact that she would just expect him to hand over sensitive materials for her own pet project displayed a pretty clear lack of awareness.

Shiro shifts his attention back to the rest of the table. No one else seemed to notice his and Katie’s quiet back-and-forth, not even Matt, who’s engaged in some kind of heated discussion over the chemical composition of Plutonian rocks with his father. After a few minutes, the Holt men try to rope Katie into the discussion, but she seems firmly glued to her phone. The others don’t comment and return to their conversation, as if already expecting she’d respond with silence.

The main course comes out and spares Shiro from having to try and join back in. The urge to fade into the background and avoid any sort of notice no longer feels like it’s stemming from his nervousness at screwing something up at the gala. Instead, it feels an awful lot like guilt is at the root. He stabs at the over-roasted potatoes on his plate and wishes he couldn’t sense the way Katie still tangibly seethes. 

By the end of the main course, though, he can’t take it. Katie had told him point blank how much she hated these events, but for a while, she had seemed to be filled with a genuine excitement at talking to him about her project. He’d been interested, too. It was only when Matt sat down next to him that Shiro remembered there was something going on outside of Katie’s bright chatter and quick fingers. 

He bites his bottom lip and draws a breath in through his nose. If he was going to be Katie’s designated escort, he was going to do a better job at it.

“So I know you’re not in the Garrison yet, but are you aiming for the Engineering program?” he asks. The words sound stilted in his ears.

Katie grunts a hard, “Dunno” and flicks an errant pea across her half-empty plate. She doesn’t make eye contact and doesn’t elaborate. Shiro stifles a sigh - as if his awkward small talk would be enough to rebuild the bridge.

But he persists, waiting a few minutes between each near-monosyllabic answer before trying again. 

“Is this the first project you’ve worked on before for a flight system?”

“No.”

“What gave you the idea for it?”

“Dad.”

“Are you working on it with anyone else?”

“Seriously?”

“What else have you programmed?”

“Bots.”

Shiro lets his pent-up sigh free. As cadet leader on base, he dealt with petulant teenagers daily, but even the worst of them could learn something about being stubborn from Katie Holt. He feels a pang of pity for anyone who crossed her the wrong way - or tried to date her. 

Shiro gathers his last pathetic attempt at starting a conversation and readies himself for a final rejection, but Katie suddenly perks up. She cranes her neck to look at something past Shiro’s shoulder.

“What is it?” he asks, voice flat. “Has Iverson come to end me?” He half-hopes it is. At this point, death might be better than this weird limbo he’s gotten himself into.

Katie starts to roll her eyes and then stops, as if catching herself. A twitch of a smile is smothered as she presses her lips in a straight line. 

“Dessert,” she says simply.

A server approaches the table a moment later, descending on them with a sweets-laden tray. A chocolate-covered mound of something appears in from of Shiro, drizzled with a brown sauce he guesses must be caramel or peanut butter. Not one for sweets on the best of days, Shiro’s nerve-and-stress heavy stomach turns at the sight of it. 

He sips at the remnants of the melted ice in his glass and wonders how much more he has left to endure. A quick glance at his watch tells him it’s only been 90 minutes, with at least two more hours to go. At least the dinner portion was almost over with.

“Are you going to finish that?”

Turning, he finds Katie leaning in, eyes set not on him, but his dessert. A first all night, her plate plate is clean. 

He raises his eyebrows. “Oh, so now we’re talking?”

She tilts her head down and stares up at him through her lashes, giving him a look that on anyone else might seem like contrition. Matt and Katie were too similar though, and if Shiro were the betting type, he’d bet Katie’s about to say something blunt that just barely avoids infuriating him.

“It’s peanut butter ganache.”

Yep. 

With a loud and put-upon sounding exhale, Shiro slides his plate over to her. 

In an instant, Katie’s fork is poised over the dessert, ready to strike. Her eyes grow wide in clear delight, and she’s about to tuck in when she pauses. 

“Thanks,” she says. A half-smile curls up the left side of her face, small but genuine. “You sure you don’t want even a bite of this? It’s not going to last long.”

She scoops a chunk onto her fork and holds it out in front of him. It feels a bit like a peace offering, even though it is technically his. He’s tempted to accept. His stomach disagrees.

“I’m good,” he says.

Katie shrugs, the ‘Suit yourself,” implicit, and absolutely decimates her newly acquired peanut butter ganache.

They endure a second round of speeches through dessert, the higher ups notably more rosy-cheeked and a little less cogent since the servers started bringing out wine with dinner. The servers come back out shortly after to clear plates, refill glasses, and essentially leave Shiro without anything to fiddle with. The music starts up a moment later.

Shiro remembers his grade school dances: clumsy, awkward, best spent hanging out with a small cluster of friends on the outer edges of the gym. Sure, his mother had steered him through a few basic lessons, and an old girlfriend had even complimented him on his moves. He’d have to have decent coordination if he wanted to be a pilot… but that doesn’t mean he’d planned on having that tested on the dancefloor. When he applied to join the Garrison, he distinctly remembers thinking he’d be free of all that. 

Besides, who would he dance with? Matt had called dibs on about half of their class of cadets prior to the gala and he’s pretty sure the other half lived in semi-fear that he’d report them to Iverson for something, even though he’d never done such a thing unwarranted. 

Maybe he’d just wait at the table.

“Well, that sounds like my cue,” Matt says as he stretches his arms above his head and grins at Shiro. “Mariel said she’d save a dance for me, but why force her to wait?”

He pushes back from the table, drops a kiss on Colleen’s cheek, and saunters over to where a clutch of their classmates have gathered near the dance floor. Samuel watches him go, then chuckles and turns to his wife.

“Well then, I suppose that’s _my_ cue.” He offers his hand to Colleen with a jaunty little flourish. “My dear?”

Taking his hand, Colleen laughs and rolls her eyes. “Ever the gentleman, Sam.” Her tone is warm, endearment obvious. They stand and walk hand-in-hand towards the dancefloor. 

That’s fine. There’s plenty Shiro can do to keep himself occupied. Perhaps people watch for a while. No better way to learn about his peers and superiors.

He starts scanning the room, taking in the festivities. Dancing, drinking, and a lot of heads bent between higher ups in deep conversation. His gaze slides back to the table. Captain Ruiz catches his eye and raises an eyebrow, look expectant. It might almost be scolding if it weren't for the slight upturn of her lips as she nods towards Katie. His brain freezes for a split second, and then a whole new wave of awareness rushes over him. _Shit, it would be rude if he didn’t-_

He turns as he speaks up, “Would you, uh, I want to d-” but cuts off when his words hit empty air. The seat next to his is vacant.

“Might want to catch up,” Ruiz says. She doesn't even stifle her chuckle. 

Shiro whips around and starts searching. It only takes a moment to catch sight of Katie as she slips out into the side hallway.

A flourish of black-and-gold around the corner, then gone.

Nothing in Iverson’s long, printed list of cadet gala protocol suggested that Shiro is required to follow Katie. From the way Iverson drilled them about behaving in front of guests (and from the way Katie herself behaved), he was willing to bet that engaging in polite conversation with Ruiz or even finding a fellow cadet to dance with would be the smarter move. But for once he's not interested in protocol, and now he’s found a way out of talking or shuffling muleishly around the ballroom. 

“If you'll excuse me,” he starts, but Mr. Ruiz waves him off. 

“See if you can keep her out of trouble,” he says. He and his wife exchange an amused look. “Lord knows Commander Holt has given up on trying.”

Shiro nods with more conviction than he feels. There's a story there, one he immediately knows Matt avoided telling him. As he winds through the tables towards where Katie disappears, he sees Matt standing at the edge of the dance floor. He grins as he chats with a small cluster of cadets. 

There's a part of Shiro that wants to go over to Matt and give him grief for ostensibly putting him on babysitting duty. Instead, he listens to the part that reminds him that Katie isn't a child and so far has proved more engaging than any of his alternatives. 

Other guests bustle up and down the hallway, heading to the bathrooms or stepping out to an adjoining pavilion. Shiro bypasses the doors leading out - if Katie were even a little bit like her brother, it was almost guaranteed that she wasn't outside of her own volition - and only hovers outside the bathrooms for a minute before moving on. 

He's contemplating circling back to the ballroom when a member of the wait staff jostles past him. Given the way she huffs the barest apologies, it must be obvious he's just a cadet. He watches as she joins the stream of people coming in and out through a curtain with a sign marked “Employees Only”. The other wait staff pay him as little attention. In fact, Shiro imagines they've all been trained to ignore anyone under the age of 25 at these sorts of things. Which means that Katie has definitely snuck back there.

If Iverson weren't such an insufferable blowhard, Shiro thinks he might be proud of the calculated stealth with which he tracks the movements of the staff. It doesn't take him more than three minutes to pick out the perfect opportunity to slip behind the curtain. No wonder he'd lost Katie so quickly.

The space behind the curtain is dark, a mixed blessing when Shiro weighs the potential safety hazards against getting caught and kicked out. It looks like he's in some kind of staging area, with a brightly lit kitchen off to the right. Most of the staff is coming from that direction, so he sticks to the shadows and peels off to the left. There’s only one place to go, a hallway even darker than where he’s coming from, and once again he knows he’s on the right track. He reaches out until his fingers brush the wall. He walks as fast as possible in the pitch black without tripping over his own feet and follows the hallway as it seems to curve further off to the left. It’s not long until he starts hearing snatches of music: the same stodgy military fanfare that had been playing around the time Katie vacated.

“No wonder,” he mutters to himself.

There’s a rustle a few yards down the hall. He picks up his pace and turns a corner in time to see a burst of light suddenly snap out of existence. 

“Katie?” he asks.

Another rustle. “Depends who’s asking,” comes the quiet response.

“It’s Shiro- Cadet Shirogane,” he says, catching himself.

Dim light begins to reveal her frame, and he can see now that she’s lifting the lid of a thin laptop. It’s a gut reaction to wonder where she’d been hiding it - he doesn’t remember her carrying a purse, and he thinks he would have noticed something like that sticking out from under her dress - and he’s glad it’s too dark for her to clearly see his face when a hot blush overtakes it. This is his friend’s younger sister, after all.

It’s not too dark, however, for him to miss the flat look she sends him. As quickly as his embarrassment sets in, it’s gone; Shiro’s not quite sure where this _teenager_ gets off, staring him down when _she’s_ the one sitting on the floor in a ball gown, hunched over a laptop in some dark service hallway.

“Here to escort me back to the festivities?”

Her shoulders lift and in the light from her screen he sees her lips twitch, like she’s trying to keep them from screwing up into a frown. Petulant, maybe more than a little defensive, as if she expected him to drag her out to the very same gala she’d declared worthless and banal less than an hour ago. Shiro had felt like she was reading his mind then, and can’t help but feel the sting of disappointment as she questions him now.

“Here to escort myself from them,” he says. He takes a few steps forward and drops into a squat next to her. One glance at her screen reveals a chunk of text gibberish not all that different from the stuff he sees Matt toying with in their downtime. For not the first time, Shiro’s glad he just wants to fly things.

Katie peers up at him. “Seriously?”

“You yourself said the whole thing was a bunch of boring formalities. Did you think I was just going to sit around enduring that while you wandered off?”

She blinks and her eyebrows lift. “Well yeah. This is awful and mind-numbing, but everything about you pretty much screams rule-follower. I thought pulling you out of line earlier was going to overload your circuits. And I doubt your placement at our table was unintentional; Iverson may be a pig stuffed into a poorly made man-suit, but I figured he’d finally managed to string enough synapses together to get someone he knows to watch me.”

Shiro frowns. He's been called a rule-follower before, but something about the way she says it chafes. Surely, if he thinks back hard enough, there have been plenty of times where he's been a troublemaker. He's just smart enough to avoid getting caught.

“Maybe Iverson doesn't know me as well as he thinks,” he declares, resolute enough for the unsaid _And neither do you_ to come across loud and clear. 

Katie stares at him long enough for it to be uncomfortable. Under her gaze, he starts to feel like a variable in the middle of a snarling calculation. Her eyes flick across his face, then to his shoulders and torso, taking in the sparse medals and ribbons adorning his uniform, and back to his face again, like she's running him through every possible solution to figure him out. He stays still and waits. 

Her shoulders relax and the pinch between her brows softens. Whatever answer she'd come to, he must fit within her parameters.

“They always try to make these things out like they're some kind of party,” she starts, “but parties are supposed to be fun. Matt's parties always have pizza and games and stuff. This just has rubber chicken dinners and shitty music and a bunch of self-congratulatory old people patting themselves on the back.”

Her fingers hover over the keyboard, and it doesn't take much for Shiro to see where she's going with this.

“I've been dying to shake things up since mom and dad started bringing me.”

“So what's been stopping you?”

That grin from before sparks on her lips; he feels the warmth from it spread across his own face.

“A reliable alibi.”

Whatever is about to happen is a terrible idea and Shiro knows it. But the excitement in Katie’s voice is magnetic, pulling him closer. Their shoulders bump as Shiro shifts to get a better view of the screen.

“What's the plan?”

Her fingers seem almost like their own separate entity as their marathon over the keyboard starts back up. She keeps her eyes fixed on him as she talks.

“Well I can't do anything about the terrible food and old people,” she says, “so that just leaves the music. Fortunately for us, most folks at the Garrison are creatures of habit, meaning they've been hiring the same hackneyed DJ for years.”

Lines of code sail across her screen. He has no idea what the strings of letters and numbers actually do, but he's already getting a sense of the end result. When he’d come in he'd noticed the DJ set up on the side of the stage, bent over his laptop and plucking at a few keys with a scowl. Brassy military fanfare had started blaring not long after that, volume lowered only when speeches were being given.

“The ‘SecuredGGWifi’ is a joke and a ten-year-old could get on to the admin network if they squinted at it long enough,” she continues. “I’ve already tunneled in and gained access to his computer and his files, so the only thing left to do now is-”

“Pick the music?”

Katie’s face lights up from something other than her computer’s screen. If all the brilliance in her head shone through with the same force that her smile does now, Shiro thinks he might be blinded. He blinks a couple of times and realizes he’s smiling back, hard.

“Any recommendations?” she asks, fingers flexing over the keyboard.

“What were you thinking?”

“Well obviously ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ has to make it on there.”

“Yeah, but you can’t start with that,” he challenges. “Some of these higher ups may not even get the joke. We’ve got to send them scrambling.”

Her lips purse and she shakes her head. “No way. Most of the old farts won’t get the joke, but they’re definitely going to know something is up immediately if we start out with something crazy. The point is to _not_ get caught in the first 30 seconds.”

Devious. She has a point though, and Shiro’s willing to admit it with a, “Fine, start with Rick Astley. I get next pick, though.”

“Bossy,” she shoots back, though there’s no malice in her tone. Shiro’s not sure if he’s pleased he’ll be out of Basic by the time Katie starts at the Garrison, or disappointed that he won’t get to witness firsthand all of the chaos she’s bound to wreak on her fellow cadets. Either way he’ll be dodging a bullet, not having to be the student command in charge of her. Matt was bad enough.

She passes him the laptop after inputting the first song. While there’s still a box full of code on the left side of the screen, the right half must be a mirror of the DJ’s own desktop. There’s a media player pulled up, and the search bar is wide open. Shiro pecks at the keyboard, a century slower than Katie.

“Bossy and slow,” she mutters. “Are you secretly, like, eighty years old?” 

Katie leans across him and plants a hand on his knee for balance as she looks at what he’s typing on the screen. 

“Don’t peek,” Shiro says, quickly lifting the laptop high above her. Perched on his heels as he is, balance and gravity duke it out for dominance, and he starts to wobble. Her weight on his knee, which shifts as she tries to reach up and grab the computer from him, doesn’t help. He types in the last few letters of his choice song before tipping back on his ass. Katie yelps.

The fall isn’t a dramatic one and barely smarts, but it ends in a flustered-looking Katie scrambling off of his legs and snatching her laptop back. She plops down and crosses her legs.

“Whatever song you picked better have been worth it.” Her words don’t come out as sharp as he thinks she’s trying to sound. 

“It is,” he says with a grin.

He stands and watches her peer at the screen, clearly judging his decision. Her grunt a moment later sounds like begrudging approval. 

“I think those two should work. I’ve added a command to the program that will pick any following songs based off of those two selections and then lock the DJ out… assuming we don’t get interrupted, this should be pretty interesting.”

Katie hits the ‘Enter’ key with a heavy click and flourish that’s clearly all show. She leans back, the look on her face self-satisfied.

“And now we wait.”

She turns her head in the direction of the hallway that leads towards the stage and settles on her heels, as if she were actually going to wait from outside the ballroom for the music to start. Shiro shakes his head. No wonder no one seemed to trust her on her own; she could execute her mischief, no problem, she just hadn’t been thinking far enough ahead to close it out and maintain her innocence. 

He extends a hand to her. “Come on. As your official alibi, I’m going to recommend that we get back into the ballroom _before_ anyone notices that you’re missing.”

Katie looks up at him, and for a split second her smile seems to waver into something shy. She closes her laptop, hitches it up under her arm, and takes his hand. He pulls her up to standing.

“Before anyone notices that _we’re_ missing,” she corrects. “You’re complicit in this now, too.”

She squeezes his hand a little and his stomach roils. This time, he doesn’t feel as nauseated with anxiety when it does. If he tugs her down the hall a little faster than necessary, and if she clasps his hand a bit harder than needed to stay together, well, it’s just the nerves.

They make it back to the ballroom with about a song and a half to spare. They stop just past the doorway, and he looks down at her. Katie’s eyes dart from person to person for a few seconds before she nods and tucks the laptop a little closer to her body.

“Shiro, why don’t you go get me a drink-”

“Excuse me?”

She clucks her tongue and rolls her eyes. “Will you please go get me a drink as a cover and maybe find Matt so that he’s distracted while I drop my computer off at the table? I’ll meet you in a sec.”

Shiro doesn’t stifle his smirk. “It’d be my pleasure, Katie.”

He turns and heads towards the refreshment tables, still able to hear Katie as she mutters, “Smartass goody two-shoes,” and stomps to their table.

Shiro grabs two cups of punch and tracks down Matt by the end of the song. For all of his bravado about dancing with ‘every cute cadet out there’, Matt’s right where Shiro last saw him - on the edge of the dancefloor, entertaining a small group of their classmates with some wild story about Iverson. He spots Shiro as he approaches.

“You didn’t lose my sister, did you?” Matt asks, waving Shiro over. 

The other cadets shuffle to make some room for Shiro. A few give him wary glances, as if their association with Matt and Shiro’s appearance meant instant punishment from Iverson. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, but it doesn’t make their hesitance any less jarring. 

“You wish, Matt.”

Katie half-elbows her way past a cadet and stops at Shiro’s side. She places a hand on his arm and sends the group a winning, if not practiced, smile. “Thanks for getting me a drink, Shiro. Ever the gentleman.”

She plucks one of the cups from his hands and takes a long drink. Matt’s eyebrows just about get lost in his hairline, and even some of the others look bemused.

“So where were you two?” Matt asks. His eyes narrow a fraction.

Shiro hates that he can hear the implication in his voice, because he knows everyone else in their little circle can hear it too. They shift around in clear interest.

He glances at Katie, whose face turns a very unhelpful shade of pink. They’d agreed that Shiro would be the alibi, but they hadn’t discussed what that alibi would be. Seems like their story was making itself up. Quick-witted Katie looks frozen to the spot as she stares at her brother, so once again it’s up to him to cover.

“We went out to the patio,” he starts. “Just to get some air and look at the stars.”

Katie whirs back into motion, bouncing on her toes a little and passing her cup back and forth between her hands. “And planets,” she adds. “Uranus is just past its meridian, and you can actually see it all the way out here”

Matt’s eyes narrow in further scrutiny and stares straight at Shiro, as if expecting him to break first. 

“Neptune was just setting too,” Shiro says. “But it was pretty faint.”

He feels Katie straighten at his side. He doesn’t dare look down at her, lest Matt suspect more than he already does. Matt looks between the two of them. A moment later, he relaxes. The same winning grin Katie had used slips onto Matt’s face.

“Katie, it’s a gala, no need to talk about Uranus,” he teases. The other cadets laugh, and the conversation steers away from them. Shiro finally dares to look down at Katie again.

Her cheeks are still red, but the stitch in her brow screams fury rather than embarrassment. Her jaw works and a moment later she opens her mouth, no doubt to cut Matt down to his rightful place. Shiro nudges her. 

“Let him be,” he says, voice low. “Pressure’s off us now.”

“But he’s an asshole,” Katie replies.

“I know. I also know where he sleeps at night.”

The smile on her face doesn’t seem to be so practiced this time. She nudges him back and sips at her drink as the opening chords of ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ filter through the large room. 

“Play it cool,” Katie murmurs from around the lip of her cup.

“I’m the least likely suspect here,” he says. “You play it cool.”

She snorts. Side by side, they watch the realization ripple across the cadets and younger officers in the room. The entire atmosphere of the room charges, comes alive. Some groan, others drop their heads in their hands, and still others cackle and drag friends out to the dancefloor. Matt’s one of latter, surprised and bewildered expression quickly turning to devilish glee as he finally takes one of their classmates by the hand and asks them to ‘Share this RickRoll’ with him. He turns back on his way to the floor and calls to Shiro.

“Come on, Shiro, it won’t be long until one of the commanders kills the fun!”

As if expecting anything different, Shiro looks around him and all he finds is Katie. 

He downs the rest of his punch in one gulp, looking more steadfast than he feels. Katie’s still at his side, watching the rollicking crowds of young soldiers and the bewildered expressions of their commanders. She’s smiling, and her hands fiddle with some of the fabric of her dress. He knows how this is going to look to Matt, but really, he’s just being courteous. Sure, there are other classmates nearby he could ask to dance, and maybe this time they wouldn’t be so trepidatious around him. But Matt had told him at the start of the night to relax and enjoy himself, and so far the most enjoyable, and stressful, parts of his evening have without a doubt been with Katie. There’s no reason why that should change now.

“We should probably go blend in,” he says by way of asking.

Katie looks up at him, lips parting in surprise. “I don’t really dance,” she says. It doesn’t feel like a ‘No’, though, especially not as her cheeks light up again.

“Neither do I, but we’re going to stick out a lot more if we’re standing here on the sidelines like casual observers.”

“We don’t want to get caught out when the next song starts,” she says with a nod. 

“That would be a dead giveaway.”

She takes his emptied drink from him and leaves both of their cups on a nearby table. Much like he’d done at the beginning of the night, Katie squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath. Cheeks pink and eyes averted, she loops her arm in his.

“Come on, alibi. Let’s go stay out of trouble.”

He rests his free hand on her arm. “I don’t think that’s possible with you, but I’ll do my best.”

It takes a few seconds to steer through the growing crowd of moving bodies and find Matt and his dance partner. Katie lets go of Shiro’s arm and stands a little in front of him, bobbing in time to the music. 

The awkward air between them dissolves in a matter of beats. Shiro steps and rocks along with the song, and a moment later Matt dips back from the cadet he’s dancing with to sing-shout the chorus. Katie bumps him out of the way with her hip, but Matt’s energy is contagious, and soon enough both she and Shiro are belting out the lyrics along with all of the others in the crowd. They dance and sing along and make ridiculous faces at one another and for a split second Shiro wonders if this might be the most fun he’s had ever.

“Never Gonna Give You Up” peters out not long after, but all Shiro can do is exchange grins with Katie. He gestures to the stage, where Iverson, maybe a little more ‘hip with the youth’ than his peers, has started to suspect something is up and is talking with the DJ. The next song starts up, a familiar, catchy line looping above the bass. 

“It’s too late!” Katie mouths, just as the entire room lights up with an explosive, “ _MY ANACONDA DON’T- MY ANACONDA DON’T-_ ”

Everyone, young and old, loses it. There’s a rallying cry from everyone on the dancefloor as they all shout along, “ _MY ANACONDA DON’T WANT NONE UNLESS YOU GOT BUNS, HUN!_ ”

Shiro and Katie jump and sway with the crowd. Everyone looks ridiculous, decked in their ceremonial uniforms and tuxedos and ball gowns, mouthing the words and getting down to Nicki Minaj. Shiro spots Matt, hands on his knees, shimmying down into a provocative squat like he’d been doing it for years; even from across the dancefloor he can see Iverson, red in the face, screaming at the hapless DJ who’s all but slamming on his keyboard to try and stop the music; but most captivating is Katie, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth wide with sheer elation. He almost takes a step closer, but the song ends and it snaps him out of his daze.

The lull is long enough for everyone to hear Iverson shouting, and Katie’s eyes flutter open. 

“I almost feel bad for the DJ,” she says, though Shiro can’t hear an ounce of remorse in her voice. “If the program worked - and I’m certain it did - he’ll be locked out for at least half an hour now that the first two songs have finished. Excellent choice, by the way. I could feel Iverson’s aneurysm from here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, raising his nose in the air. 

Katie giggles and punches him lightly on the arm. The music starts up again, loud and full of bass. They’re jostled a bit as the crowd continues to dance, but Katie doesn’t start back up. Shiro offers her his hand and leads them out to the edges of the dancefloor, nodding to cadets and some officers as they clear a path for him.

“I guess being the model cadet comes in handy, huh?” Katie says when they’re free of the group. 

“I’ll tell you for sure once we’re clear of all of this.” He gestures with his free hand to the ballroom: all the dancing teens, the scandalized and amused adults. “Was it worth it?” 

He smiles down at her and notices that their hands are still joined. Katie must realize at the same time; she drops his hand like it’s on fire. As if linked, they simultaneously glance around the room then turn back to the other and let loose a stilted chuckle. Katie recovers first. She clasps her upper arm with her other hand and shifts back and forth. 

“Yeah,” she says. “It ended up being fun for once. This is the best military ball I’ve been to.”

“The best military ball you’ve been to _so far_ ,” Shiro says. “You still have at least two years of this once you make it to the Garrison.”

Biting her lip, Katie rubs her palms on her dress. A moment later she stills. When she looks up, the expression that meets him is determined. 

“Then I guess you’ll have to endure four more years of these, because there is no way that I’m going to be able to keep out of trouble without you around.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “You didn’t even stay out of trouble _with_ me around!”

Katie’s look is still resolute, though her brow furrows a bit, like he missed something. “Then I guess you’ll have to try harder next time.”

“I guess I will.” He smiles, feeling wholly at ease, and the hard expression on Katie’s face melts away.

“Katie, Shiro!”

They turn to see Samuel and Colleen approaching. Samuel waves at them, face looking a shiny and flushed, as if he, too, had just come off the dancefloor. Given the music playing, Shiro tries not to think about it too hard. 

“We couldn’t find you two after dinner,” Samuel says once they’re close enough. “But from the looks of it, you joined Matt and the dancing?”

“Yeah, we were out there for a few songs,” Katie says.

“But we checked out the stars on the patio before that,” Shiro adds. Katie nods and shoots him an appreciative look - they had to keep their stories consistent.

“Sounds like you had a nice evening, then,” Colleen pipes in. He sees her exchange a look with Katie that ends in pink cheeks for the girl.

“It was,” Shiro says, covering for her. “Katie knows quite a bit about astronomy and planetary paths. Almost like she’s been raised with it or something.”

Shiro and the adult Holts chuckle, but Katie stays quiet, back to messing with her dress.

“Well I’m happy to hear it,” Sam says. He places a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “But I’m afraid we’re going to have to be heading out soon. Colleen and I may be getting too old for this sort of revelry - these events don’t normally get so… exciting.” His tone is playful, and Shiro thinks the penchant for mischief doesn’t just span the Holt children.

“It’s certainly not what I was told to expect,” Shiro says, as if he weren’t a part of the whole thing. 

“I can’t imagine what the next one will be like,” Samuel says. “Well, it was a joy seeing you again, my boy, and I appreciate you keeping our Katie company!”

Keeping her company isn’t exactly what he’d call it, but Shiro nods along anyway. Katie steps away from his side and stands next to her parents. 

“Thank you, Cadet Shirogane,” Katie says,” for a delightful evening.” Her voice affects a formal air, but there’s a hint of a grin at her lips. She reaches out to shake his hand.

He takes her hand in his and takes on her same tone. “It was my pleasure, Miss Holt,” he replies, and then, dropping the air, follows up with a, “But please, it’s Shiro.”

Katie’s lips press into a tiny smile, the kind that pushes up into the cheeks like she’s trying to contain something much bigger behind it. “Katie,” she responds. “And never Pidge, no matter what Matt says.”

Samuel claps a hand on Katie’s shoulder, pulling them both out of a private space Shiro didn’t realize they’d even slid in to. His eyes gleam as he looks at the two of them.

“Katie, your mother and I are going to go say good night to a few more people. Make sure to find your brother before you go - we’ll meet you at the car.”

Katie nods, and they turn the other way.

“It really was nice to meet you, Katie,” Shiro says. “Even though I think my chances of getting kicked out of the Garrison have doubled now.”

“Tripled,” she shoots back. “It was already doubled the day they roomed you with Matt.”

“Well, that makes it better,” he says, voice fake flat.

“I try.”

They share a chuckle. Silence falls between them. Katie taps the toe of her shoe on the carpet. Shiro picks a nonexistent speck off of his collar.

“I should probably go find Matt and then get going,” Katie finally says. “I’m not entirely sure my parents wouldn’t leave me here.”

“Yeah, I should go mingle some,” he says. “Build up my model cadet status before it all comes crashing down.”

“Good luck with that.” A pause, with all the weight of heavy consideration. “Nice job with the cover, by the way,” she adds. “The thing about Neptune being visible. You really know your sky.”

“It's going to be in the job description eventually, right?”

“Yeah. I don't think most people would be so aware, though. It’s… good.” Her words trail off. He gets the sense she has more to say, but she doesn't continue.

Shiro goes for a handshake as Katie starts to turn away; she catches it and turns back in time, responding with an ill-timed fist bump. They try again, Shiro reaching out with a fist bump as Katie extends her open hand. Finally they make it work, hands joining in a shake that seems far more formal than necessary. 

They part, and Katie starts heading towards the dance floor in search of her brother. Stomach shifting strangely, he watches her go. He realizes with a start that he doesn’t want to wait until the next Garrison event to talk to her again. Outside of flying, she might be the most interesting thing that’s happened to him since joining.

“Katie!” he calls.

She stops and looks back at him. “What?” she yells over the noise.

“Tell Matt to give you my number.”

“What?” she asks again, confusion clear in her tone.

Shiro pictures the cadet flight instruction manual sitting idly on his desk. She’s the only other person he thinks would use it better.

“So I can help you with your project!”

Katie blinks, and then it hits her a moment later. She grins and waves, mouthing something he can’t decipher. As she disappears into the crowd, he thinks the image of her smile might be permanently burned into his retinas. He doesn’t think he minds.

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely spent a good 30 minutes looking at sky maps of Albuquerque in December for this.
> 
> SHIDGE LYFE: keylimepidge.tumblr.com


End file.
